


tony and natasha after siberia

by sunbean72



Category: Avengers, Iron Man - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bitter, Brotp, Gen, Hurt Tony Stark, I don't know why I wrote this, I don't think Tony remains this bitter, I hope they work out their crap, I'm so bitter today, Natasha Romanov Feels, Poor Tony, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Sad, Salty, Siberia, So things are a little tender, That's right, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Why do I hurt me so, all the tony tags, but it was RIGHT AFTER SIBERIA, but planning on going at it alone, dude has some major trust issues now, he looks at the phone and doesn't throw it out the window after all, i love them, like that planet on TLJ, super salty, that's canon, the infinity war prelude comic got me like, these two, this is not very cap friendly, unfortunately
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-06 17:29:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13416102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunbean72/pseuds/sunbean72
Summary: Tony is in the hospital after Siberia and gets a visit from an old friend





	tony and natasha after siberia

The doctor was spending a lot of time assuring Pepper that he'd be fine. Tony had heard him repeat it several times, sprinkled throughout the conversation, "He'll be fine. He will heal from this. Dr. Cho has made remarkable progress." The two of them walked down the hall, continuing their discussion, which was perfectly fine. Tony didn't need to hear it again. 

It was a SHIELD doctor, of course, what was left of SHIELD. Whatever it was now, the people who he surrounded himself with on Avenger's Compound now that there was no Avengers. He couldn't go to the hospital, not when so much of his anatomy was proprietary, that for legal and national security reasons had to be kept secret. If his medical records leaked, there would be hell to pay, that was for sure, and it would no doubt make its way into the hands of some psychopath who felt, like so many others, that Tony Stark needed to be _destroyed_ (a nice, all-encompassing word, summed things up nicely) for some greater purpose. 

"You okay?" The nurse asked as she came in. Tony, lost in thought, paused at the sound of her voice, frowning. Something seemed off (but everything was). He shook himself. It was a harmless question, he was getting too paranoid. He adjusted the strap of the sling on his left arm. He'd been threatened with amputation if he didn't leave it alone to heal this time.

"Yeah, I'm... fine." He said, turning to study the woman. "Where's Jan?" She was an unremarkable but pretty-ish woman, older than he was, probably. He'd never seen her before.

"She had to go home early. Her son won a scholarship at school, it was a surprise to them. I'll be here until the next shift comes on in a few hours, Mr. Stark." From her posture, he could see that if he engaged her, she would like to get to know him. She would open up, be friendly. He wondered how long it would be before he was able to do that kind of thing again; be friendly. It took an emotional reserve that he didn't anticipate ever having again, but he surprised himself sometimes. Nature and inclination didn't change as easily as loyalty and trust, it would seem. There might be a time when he could care about people again, as long as he didn't know them.

He just wasn't up for it, today. He scratched the scruff on his cheek, contemplating how long it'd been since a shave and tried to decide how much he cared. (Not that much, it was looking like). 

"Are you in any pain right now?" Not Jan asked as she pulled up his chart on the computer. "It's been six hours since your last dose of medicine."

Tony didn't answer for a moment, flexing his hands experimentally. The frostbite had been the most worrisome to him, funnily enough; he'd been terrified he'd lose functioning in his fingers. Dr. Cho and Pepper had been fit to be tied about the damage to his chest, his heart, but all he could think was he didn't want to live without his fingers. If it had taken away his ability to build, to create, to tinker, he just didn't see the point of it. The entire time she'd been trying to talk to him about his bruised heart, his fractured sternum, the Tony had just kept asking about his hands, _what about my fingers_ and Dr. Cho had come through and he hadn't noticed any problems. They still ached, but not bad. His chest hurt, but Cho had said that was normal. That it would heal within a few more days under the careful ministrations of the cradle.

"It's fine. I'm fine," he replied, turning away. Jan was a great nurse, he was put out that she was gone without saying goodbye, and he hated feeling weak and vulnerable in front of another stranger.

"Tony." He glanced at the nurse, but it was Natasha, pulling off an electronic mask, one person one moment, another the next.

"Natasha? What the hell are you doing here?" Tony felt a sudden but brief flare of fear spike through him and he sat up straight, tense and anxious for a moment before guardedly relaxing. Ridiculously, he'd thought that she was here as a threat against him, to hurt or harm him in some way, but that was dumb it was just because she showed up so unexpectedly, she'd never try to hurt him but he thought the same thing about Steve Rogers, he'd thought the same thing about himself, he'd never thought any of the things that did happen could happen--

Whatever passed over his face in the tumult of emotion alarmed Natasha and she leaned forward, frowning in concern. "Hey, are you all right?"

"Always," he choked, struggling. Just... struggling. He should be pleased to see her. He cared about her, and thought that despite what happened there was a part of her that cared for him. But he didn't trust her. "Come to say goodbye?" The words didn't match his tone; he was accusing her, he was angry and anxious and sarcastic and she answered that instead of his question but the answer was yes, she was come to say goodbye.

She sat on the bed, a weariness settling on her shoulders. All the masks, and for once he thought maybe this was the real thing because of how tired she looked. "I tried, Tony. I did. But when we couldn't stop Zemo because of the Accords, I had to make a choice. But it wasn't between you and Steve. It came down to stopping a bigger threat, that's all. It wasn't between the Avengers and breaking up, because you know how I feel."

"I... I really don't." He didn't know anything he once thought he knew.

"It was a nice thought. That I could... work in the light instead of the shadows. It sounded good. It was enticing. That's what I hoped the Accords would mean, but... But I guess you were right about me. You're good at that. Huh? Remember Natalie? You were always reading her, too. Despite the distraction of dying, I saw how you suspected me. And you said... you said about double-dealing sticking in the DNA, I guess you're right. I was foolish to try. But you were there and I hurt you and... Tony, I _am_ sorry, and you deserve to know that."

"Being sorry and regretting your actions are two different things aren't they," he said quietly, not really asking the question, he was too busy thinking, trying to understand if it was blood in his veins or something else, darkness and shadows or something else, if people hated and betrayed him because of who they were or because of who he was, if it was because of something inside him that he was too close to see but everyone else did and it made him deserve the bad things that happened to him.

"There are things I regret. The way I handled things... it might have helped Steve get to the Hydra assassins but it made it so I wasn't available to help, I was too busy running and maybe I could have done it differently, but at the time Steve and Bucky getting away was--"

"Oh. Oh, no. No no, I wasn't talking about that. That was... that was _me_ giving in to something that was enticing, something that sounded good. A teammate actually supporting me. But I knew that was too good to be true." He moved his hand in a flutter of dismissal, without bitterness. "I'm not talking about that." He wasn't even looking at her then but then he did and she thought how he usually didn't look her in the eyes, she wasn't sure which one of them avoided it but his words had wounded, she was bleeding, but she took it because she knew he wasn't entirely wrong, had a bad feeling, she knew what was going to come next. "I'm talking about my murdered parents and you not telling me."

Natasha Romanov the woman who could read anyone like a book, who moved so smoothly into what a mark needed and wanted that she no longer even thought about it, who had the ability to tightly control what people thought and felt about her, who was brilliant, who was insanely cunning and downright ruthless, had nothing to say to that. 

Tony looked away with a harsh exhalation of breath, his face broken and he closed his eyes, leaning his head back on the pillow. She realized then that even to that last moment, he had hoped she would be able to deny it. Though he knew better there was the smallest sliver of him that had held out hope. Hope to be wrong, hope to know she really was on his side all along, hope that he could trust her, hope that his faith hadn't been so wildly displaced. It could only be what it was-- the obliteration of that faith, a final and true disillusionment.

Natasha felt cold with horror. She had heard that Tony had been put in the hospital through a very anonymous grapevine that was now completely burned; she'd been lucky enough to get the information as it was. This was possibly her last chance to ever see or talk to Tony again, because once she went to ground, she'd never see or hear from her contacts again and Tony had already begun the process of utterly locking down everything related to the Avengers so tightly it might as well have not existed. She'd heard he was in the hospital and Zemo was in custody, and that was it. She had assumed that that meant Tony, Steve, Bucky, and perhaps T'Challa had fought the Hydra Winter Soldiers and defeated them.

She was beginning to realize. She was beginning to see. Something worse than Hydra assassins had happened in Siberia. There was no way for Tony to know about his parents unless--

"Tony, what exactly happened in Siberia?" She forced herself to ask, her mouth dry, her throat tight. It had been a long time, many years since she had felt anything like it; she had her body's response so tightly controlled that she hadn't known it was possible. Here it was though; the irrefutable demise of the Avengers, their irreparable death as team, that was really all it took.

Tony didn't open his eyes or answer her. She saw how he fought, with iron will and determination, to fight the feelings and emotions that were threatening to overwhelm him. He opened his eyes but didn't look at her. He stared instead at his callused and still swollen hand resting on his lap. After a moment, he reached over and took off his sling so his arm didn't rest across his chest, then he lifted the edge of his shirt, slowly but purposefully, revealing an ugly red and purple bruise, a diagonal slash that cut across where the arc reactor had once nestled. In that spot, as if someone had hit him with a hammer, a mark of immense pressure, a circular bruise with streaks like lightning, like something cracked and shattered coming off it. 

She sat there, staring at the injuries, numb with shock and horror and a growing cold, icy dread. "Steve did this?" She asked in a whisper, because there could be no mistaking what exactly had made the mark across his chest-- the perfect shape of the perfect shield. 

"This." Tony gestured along the bruise. She wondered how he breathed with it. It must have hurt terribly with every breath. "Is Steve. This was James Barnes when he attempted to tear the arc reactor out of my chest." He tapped the circular spot with the lightning bolts at the center of his chest. "I doubt he knew how intricately the suit and I are linked, but, regardless. He lost his metal arm in the process, unfortunately for him." He pulled his shirt down and rearranged his sling.

"But... how?" 

"Zemo," he answered, watching her face, her reaction. Watching for guilt, for shame. He saw only her stunned horror and scoffed. "Like you didn't see this coming. You had to know it was a possibility, that other people out there knew and could use the information against me. What you didn't think of that? I find it hard to believe. You knew. And you still didn't tell me. You left me open to it. You set me up, you, Fury, and him." _You didn't protect me,_ she heard in his words. _After all I did to protect you both._ She'd seen him create, from his own mind and heart, equipment and weapons for the team. She'd seen him fight with Ross, fight with everyone, even his own teammates, to try and protect the individuals and the entity of the Avengers and yet they had left him open to this blow, left him vulnerable and then Steve had been the one to blame him for his anger.

She didn't say anything (she had no answer). 

"I trusted you." This time not accusing. "I trusted you despite. Everything. Why didn't you tell me Nat?" His use of his pet name for her broke her heart. 

"It was... a sword I wasn't going to fall on." He flinched as if flame-bitten, having taken her words to mean she wouldn't fall on it _for him,_ but she didn't mean that. "Damn it! Not because I wouldn't take a hit for you, Tony. Because I wanted you to be happy. Because I didn't want to see your face when you found out. Because I love-- I don't owe him anything." Steve? "Howard Stark. But you... I thought I might spare you, one time." After the many times it had been her that hurt him, she didn't want to take the responsibility for it this time, thought it ought to come from Steve or Fury.

"You're not known for pulling your punches, princess. I call bullshit."

"Go ahead. It's the truth this time. I didn't want it to come from me, it wasn't my secret to keep."

"News flash," he was all bitterness, bitter, bitter anger and grief. "It might have been nicer to hear it from a 'friend.'"

She could see that, now. "I'd do it differently. I would have taken the bullet of it, Tony." She wondered if he heard the note of desperation in her voice, seeing him slipping farther and farther away from her, or if it were something only she knew, one more secret.

"Yeah. Being there for me, treating me like a friend instead of an asset to be handled would have really been throwing yourself on a grenade. Don't do me any favors, Ms. Romanov! And don't worry, I won't _expect it_ in the future," he spat, angry, angry. She remembered she was close to him once, close enough to feel the warmth of his body and the arc reactor's light on her skin through his shirt and she'd taken it for granted then, the trust of a dying man, a good man. She'd only sought to use it and now it was broken, perhaps and probably irrevocably.

"I'm sorry," she said helplessly.

He scoffed, no more than a small exhalation of air, closing his eyes and shaking his head. He met her eyes one last time. "Go on, say your goodbyes. We'll see how they stick this time, at least until you guys need something again, my brains or my money to help save the day and then leave me holding the bill and the blame. This is the last time for me. I know now that for all your skills and intelligence, you're like him, a coward. Goodbye, Ms. Romanov."

She was crying now, but he didn't care, and she reached a hand for him, pleading, but he drew away from her, and everything they'd lost seemed to crash down around her and she withdrew her hand. "Okay," she said, accepting. It had never hurt this much before. "If you change your mind--" but she didn't finish and he only frowned and she was gone before Pepper came back with hot coffee.

**Author's Note:**

> I would really appreciate comments


End file.
